Fishing with Shoelaces
by SunShark
Summary: Harry comes from an at the very least emotionally abusive family, so it's remarkable how well he blended in with the rest of the children. It really depends on which children, though, and while a Ron from the future means the best for his best friend, circumstances are quite difficult to replicate.


So really, this popped into my head, and I thought that while the area wasn't exactly lacking, I was going to give it a shot anyway. Yeah, should really start working on my other fics, but...

* * *

The moment he burst through the wall, he knew there was something different. Something _special_, like the tingly feeling he got when he first walked into Diagon Alley. It zapped him somewhere; near his heart? Just lightly, but it felt so familiar.

He might have dwelt on it more, but the platform was packed; with more people in pointed hats (_"wizards"_, he reminded himself), more owls like Hedwig, more children, more crying, and even random explosions going off here and there. He turned quickly, hoping to find the nice red-haired woman, but she had all but disappeared, swept away in the crowd.

He began to panic. Now what was he suppose to do? He glanced at Hedwig, and she turned her head, facing a bunch of other students who were trying to clamber into –

_The train!_ That was it! He gave the owl a thankful glance, which ignored it in favor of tucking her head under her wing. With a bit of struggle, he tugged his cart through the maze of black cloaks, feeling distinctly out of place in his oversized hand-me-downs.

_At least they don't see me_, he thought, cheering slightly. He was good at going unnoticed, and in the crowd of parents and children, it wasn't all that hard. Maybe they wouldn't realize he didn't belong until he reached the school, so he'd at least get to see what it looked like. Just to be sure though, he kept his head down and tried to squash his bangs onto his forehead. No matter what Hagrid said, the scar was still kind of ugly and a source of unwanted attention.

It was a bit difficult hoisting his trunk up (the books in it were really heavy, almost as heavy as the vacuum cleaner and groceries combined), but the red-haired twins he saw before helped him lug it up into the nearest compartment, before popping back out to see some tarantula. He wasn't really interested in spiders after sleeping with them for a good ten years, so he didn't follow. He had to watch his trunk anyway, it might disappear. This place was _magic_ after all, anything could happen!

Suddenly, his compartment door slammed open, and in rushed one of the red-heads in a maniac manner. "Finally," he thought he heard the boy sigh, "Har – I mean, all the other compartments were full, mind if I sit here?" The boy looked ready to vault into the seat across from him, but was just waiting for his say so.

He took pity on him. "Go ahead," he said, gesturing to the seat, and the red head collapsed on it, one hand fiddling with his wand. The boy then suddenly jolted up, like he'd just remembered something, and turned to face him.

"Ron Weasley," the red head almost shouted, and he tried hard not to wince at the outburst. But, since he didn't want to be rude (_insolentboyhurryupandgetouto fsight_ sounded his aunts' voice before he blocked it out), he offered "I'm Harry. Harry Potter".

The red head – Ron, grinned at that, almost in – _relief_? Soon, he was gesturing at his forehead. "So do you really have the…you know…"

"Scar?" Harry offered, and Ron looked so excited he let him take a look, just a small peak under his bangs at it. He made sure his hair still fell over it afterwards.

"_Wicked,_" Ron breathed, and Harry sort-of smiled. It was weird when people made such a fuss over his scar like they did in Diagon Alley, but if it made them happy, then….he guessed it was okay.

Maybe it was something only wizards knew. Oh, that was right… "So your whole family is…magical?"

Ron nodded. "Yup. Dad works at the ministry, Bill's at Gringots, and Charlie's working with dragons in Romania. Everyone else is at Hogwarts. Percy can be a right git sometimes but he's okay, and the twins are pranksters like you've never seen. Oh, and there's Ginny too, but she'll be coming next year."

Harry mentally ticked off fingers in his head. _There's a dad, one…brother I guess, two…three…six siblings? And a mom. Wow._ Then he rewound the conversation. _There was a ministry?_

Ron was still talking. "And yeah it can get kind of crowded at the Burrow, especially during family gatherings, but mom loves feeding people, so you can come by anytime your un …"

He caught himself then, and colored to match his hair. "I mean, well, only if you want to, you know, and, uh…"

Harry felt puzzled. They just met, and he was already inviting him over? Granted, Harry had met Ron's mother already, but still…Was it a wizard thing to invite complete strangers over? "Um, okay…" He murmured. The two of them sat in awkward silence.

Someone tapped on their compartment door. Harry, eager to do something, slid it open, and promptly saw the plump face of an old woman. On her robe was a pin, reading 'Abigail Hass'. "Anything from the trolley dears," She asked. Before her was a huge pile of wrapped chocolates, pastry, and candies that would have made Dudley gone bug-eyed. As it were, Harry wondered if she had Mars Bars as well, remembering how good it tasted before his cousin had stole the rest of his Halloween candy.

Ron shook his head. "I'm good," he grumbled, pulling out two lumpy sandwiches. "Corn beef, I _still_ hate corn beef," Harry thought he heard him mutter. The red head seemed to do that a lot.

Well, that wouldn't stop him from trying some of the stuff himself. He pulled out a handful of coins for the lady. "We'll take the lot," he said.

The red head's mouth dropped in astonishment, and when Harry looked at how much candy he received for his coins…well, he definitely couldn't finish that on his own.

By the time he looked up, the trolley lady – Mrs. Hass? – had already moved on.

Well, only one thing to do then. He turned to the red head. "Want some?" He offered, holding up a pastry labeled 'Caldron Cake'. It was black and shaped like his potions caldron, with some sort of green filling in the center.

He saw Ron look up, saw him eyeing the pastry hungrily, but then look down again at his lumpy sandwiches in something that resembled – guilt?

"I couldn't, Harry, I…" the red head protested. That wouldn't do, he would have to carry the rest of the food with him then, and he might drop them or loose them that way. Better to finish them now, with someone he sort-of knew. The red head wasn't bad, just a bit…weird.

He offered a compromise. "How about you trade me a sandwich for half this stuff?" Ron swallowed the bait, and the exchange was made.

It helped that Ron was able to offer explanations for each of the candies. "Bertie Botts Every Flavored Beans," the red head went on at the moment, "when they say every flavor, they _mean _every flavor. There's chocolate, peanut, lemon, barbeque, and cheese, but also spinach, mud, rust, and pea. George swore he got a bogey flavored one once."

Harry had just bit a 'mud' flavored one, and decided that the creators probably never had a mouthful of it before. Still, to be on the safe side, he and Ron took small bites of the beans before eating the whole thing.

He was enjoying an onion flavored one when Ron opened his first chocolate frog. "The chocolate's okay, but what you really want is the card at the bottom. They're collectable." Harry watched as the brown frog in the box, seeing its escape route, made a bid for freedom and leapt towards him. Without thinking, his hand shot out and crushed the frog in midair, which stopped moving once its head was a brown pulp. Sniffing his hand, he realized that it really was chocolate.

Looking up, he saw Ron looking at him strangely, but snapped out of it when he realized he was looking back. The red head gave a weak laugh. "Yeah, they do that too." Then, in a bid to move on, he handed Harry the card from the box. "It's Dumbledore. I've got five of him, so you should have it, start up your own deck."

Harry took the card with his non-chocolate covered hand. There was an old man with a great white beard and half-moon spectacles, smiling faintly out of the card. There was a description on the bottom of the card that he took time to read through. When he looked at the picture again, it was blank.

"He's gone!" He exclaimed! Later he could swear Ron was looking at him fondly as he replied "Well, he can't stay there all day, can he?" So the pictures could think? Could the picture Dumbledore seen out of his card, see some messy-haired riff-raff, and decide that he didn't want to stick around?

Well, Harry wouldn't blame him. He still hoped it wasn't the case though; he needed to make it to Hogwarts first at least.

For the third time today, his compartment door slid open. Now a bushy-haired girl poked her head in to ask "Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one."

The red head waved her off. "Nope, haven't seen one," he replied, not even looking at the girl. Harry thought it was quite rude of him, weren't guys supposed to treat girls nicely? Mr. Samson, his 5th grade teacher, would yell at anyone being rude to a girl, even if being rude to boys was fine.

But the girl was looking at Ron's gesturing hand, which was still holding his wand. "Oh, do you know any spells? I've been reading through my books all summer, and I've practiced a bit on my own, but…go on." At this, Harry perked up. He hadn't actually seen that much magic yet, and was eager for more.

Ron was blushing from the attention, though he seemed to enjoy it. "Well, if you really want to…" he trailed, and under the girl and Harry's insistent look he folded. "Okay then," he straightened, looking important. He pointed his wand at Harry, who flinched backwards at the action but didn't have time to move before the red head said "_Repairo_!"

A spark flew out from the wooden tip to his glasses, and something shifted and suddenly everything was so much _clearer_. He took off his glasses and examined them; they were perfectly fixed. Amazing! He looked through his glasses again, and discovered Ron had freckles on his nose and blue eyes, and the girl had brown eyes and had her wand out as well.

The girl looked impressed. "That's nice," she said, and Harry disagreed with her because it was _amazing_ and not just _nice_ and she continued, "I have one too." And with that, she pointed her wand at Ron's trunk on the seat and said "_Alohamora!_"

Ron's trunk suddenly flew open, and out flew something grey and furry that Harry caught reflexively. _A rat?_ He wondered as it squeaked and wriggled in panic, some tuffs of hair coming loose in the struggle. _An old rat, then_.

Wait, why did Ron have a rat in his trunk?

He turned up to ask Ron, but literally fell backwards as the red head lunged towards him, teeth bared. "Get back here, you…!" the red head shouted as Harry scrambled to find his feet.

The girl screamed, and Harry dodged sideways just in time, shoulder hitting the window. The red head, however, was not to be deterred, and leapt at him once more, clawing furiously at his hands as Harry gripped the rat even tighter.

"Stop it! Stop it, you two," someone sobbed, while Harry kicked reflexively, he was used to being mauled, and the red-hair swore like Uncle Vernon did once and the rat kept wriggling in his hand wide awake now and Hedwig screeched and somewhere a door slammed open with twin shouts of "Petrificus Totalus!"

And Harry…froze. His body snapped straight as a rod, arms stiff at his sides, and he thudded to the ground like a felled tree. From what he could see from his position, Ron had been hit by that…spell, too.

He blinked. At least his face was working; it would be a pain to have his eyes kept open like that one time with Dudley. This position was still a pain, though.

"Sorry about that," cried a cheery voice above him that sounded vaguely familiar, "We just need" "to chat with our dear" "younger brother for a moment" "So if you'll excuse us –"

And the compartment door slid shut, and he was alone. On the plus side, he could move again. On the other side…

The door slammed open again. What was with people and slamming doors? He'd get his ears boxed if he tried it at the Dursley's (though Dudley did it all the time), and it was his compartment now, he should be the one to slam it!

A pair of spiffy-looking shoes strolled their way into the compartment, the owner and his round blond hair swiveling around the rest of the room, looking for something. Then the owner glanced down, and stared. Why was he – oh. Yeah, he probably did look strange lying on the floor.

Hmm, didn't that boy look familiar?

Thankfully, the boy kept silent over his position, though his eyebrow did twitch twice. Harry found his feet quickly, and the blond boy finally smiled at him, though it looked a bit strained.

"Draco Malfoy," the boy stated, as if he were as important as some of uncle Vernon's dinner guests, even extending a hand for him to shake. After all the craziness so far, Harry was just glad that there was _something_ he could do right.

"Harry. Harry Potter," he said, and clasped the hand with his own.

* * *

So was it actually clear that Ron put his foot in his mouth? Not sure if anyone can understand this, but Oh Well. It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm half delirious. Deal.


End file.
